Covering all the bases with whatever's bouncing around in my head today!

Feels Like The First Time

No, no, no, not that! Get your heads out of the gutter! In anticipation of the upcoming season, I was reminiscing about the blossoming of my love for the game, and ultimately the first baseball game I ever attended.

I spent my formative years in rural northeastern Pennsylvania. Well, at that time it was rural – not so much anymore. This was back in the days pre-cable, pre-satellite, pre-anything except good old-fashioned broadcast television. We were pretty much equidistant from both Philadelphia and New York, so the team you ended up rooting for was pretty much determined by which TV station your antenna could pick up (I know you young’uns out there are probably having a hard time imagining such archaic technology ;-) ).

Some people could only get Philadelphia stations. Some could only get New York stations. Some poor souls could get practically none at all. My family was apparently blessed with the ideal location, as we could get both! This led to an early schism in our household – I rooted for the Phillies,but my sister ended up following the Mets.Or as I so lovingly teased her, the Mutts.

So the two girls in the family would argue over which team to watch (oddly enough, our younger brother didn’t even like baseball, so he didn’t care). I’m pretty sure the only reason my sister watched the Mets was because she had the hots for Lee Mazzilli, though she will deny that. Note Lee’s nifty late-’70’s hairstyle.

Let’s fast-forward now through my high-school and college years, when I regrettably succumbed to the peer pressure that it wasn’t “cool” for girls to like sports. And since there were no MLBlogs at the time, of course I didn’t know that there actually were a lot of female baseball fans out there. I guess none of you went to my school – oh well.

So finally, two years out of college, at the ripe old age of 23, I finally get to attend my first major league game. Yay!

May 15, 1987. The Padres are playing the Phillies at everybody’s favorite stadium to bad-mouth, the Vet. A guy I had recently met asked me out on a date – yay! To go see the Phillies – double yay! But I was recovering from having my appendix removed – not yay. He also didn’t believe in buying tickets ahead of time – double not yay. We got to the stadium and he bought what were actually pretty decent seats from an “unofficial ticket salesman” in the parking lot, and the view from our seats was pretty much like this:

Not too bad! We settled in to watch the game, and now here comes the memorable part. Sometime in the middle innings, San Diego’s catcher lofts a high foul pop toward the upper deck behind us. Everyone is craning around to see (except me – limited mobility from the appendix, you know), and it appears to be caught by someone in the first row or two up there.

But they dropped it!

As I look up to see the ball falling towards us, what seemed like dozens of hands are all reaching above me to try to catch the ball. All I could do was cringe, close my eyes, and cover my head to keep from being whacked unconscious. Then I heard voices asking “Where is it?”, “Where’d it go?”

I opened my eyes to see, believe it or not, the ball nestled between my feet. All these years later, I still have it. Here it is:

The ball was off the bat of Benito Santiago, who went on to win the Rookie of the Year award that year, and later played for the Phillies in 1996.

Sadly, I don’t even remember the name of the guy that took me to the game (it was our one and only date). The Phillies won that game, 7-4, but would go on to finish fifth (out of six) in the NL East that year.

After that, my love for the game was back to stay. So thank you, whoever you are, for taking me out that night!

Great story, Sue. I loved hearing how you became a fan. Aren’t you glad to know there are so many of us she-fans out there now? Funny about you and your sister arguing over the Phillies and Mets and your brother not caring at all. Does she still root for them? If so, you two must have some sibling rivalry going on these days.

Sue,
I don’t know how “cool” it is for girls to like baseball at my school, but I’ve learned not to care, my friends sort of accept it! The funny part is, I know more about baseball than some of the guys. Your first ball game was a date, and I hope that my first date is a ball game! That’s so cool that you got a ball at your first game too!
-Elizabethhttp://redsoxgirl46.mlblogs.com

Julia – my husband told me he was tempted to leave a smartass comment about the title, but thankfully he doesn’t have an mlb.com account!
Jane – I am certainly glad there are so many she-fans! I love that we have this forum to all share our stories. And no, my sister does not follow baseball anymore (her loss!).
Elizabeth – I think it’s fantastic that you are comfortable enough with yourself to not care if others think it’s cool or not. As a teenager, I wasn’t so blessed. It took till I was in my 20’s to gain that self-confidence. When that first date to a ballgame does come, be sure to let us all know about it!
Sue

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